Today after break our class got to experience what it was like to be in a Victorian classroom as our topic is the Victorians. Our teacher became a typical Victorian teacher for Maths and English.
Before break we had to put our water bottles at the side of the room. My friend and I thought that we would get to do something arty because we always do that before art. When we came back in from break the teacher had a measuring pole in her hand and then she started shouting that we needed to sit down in any seat and do it quickly. She banged the pole on a table and shouted: “From now on, you shall stand at the side of the table to answer a question. You must say: “Miss Orchant, the answer is ____ and then the answer!”
Everyone got a fright and quickly sat down in any seat.
On the table in front of us there was a slate and a thick piece of pencil lead on it. The first lesson was Maths and the maths questions were simple multiplication questions. When the teacher was asking the questions the pupil that was asked stood up and went over to the side of the desk and answered the question.
When it was my turn I went to the side of the table and said “The answer is 100… ” Then Miss Orchant shouted “DUNCE!” (because I forgot to add Miss Orchant at the beginning of my answer and I hesitated before I gave my answer) so I had to go to the front of the class and put on the DUNCE hat and stand facing the wall. Then because of that accident I missed the rest of the maths lesson!
The teacher shouted to grab a slate and lead and to write ‘Keepnotwhatisnotyours’ in a big long line with no spaces in between the words and also in old style letters. When another boy in the class had bad handwriting the teacher shouted “DUNCE” so he had to put on the DUNCE hat too.
When we finished writing the words out three times we needed to write ‘livepeacefullywhithallmen’ in the same way. That was the Victorian era classroom finished, it was scary!
